front cover of Air Transport Labor Relations
Air Transport Labor Relations
Robert W. Kaps
Southern Illinois University Press, 1997

Robert W. Kaps examines air transport labor law in the United States as well as the underlying legislative and policy directives established by the federal government. The body of legislation governing labor relations in the private sector of the U.S. economy consists of two separate and distinct acts: the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries, and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which governs labor relations in all other industrial sectors.

Although the NLRA closely follows the pattern established by the RLA, Kaps notes that the two laws are distinguishable in several important areas. Labor contracts negotiated under the RLA continue in perpetuity, for example, whereas all other labor contracts expire at a specified date. Other important areas of difference relate to the collective bargaining process itself, the procedures for the arbitration of disputes and grievances, and the spheres of authority and jurisdiction to consider such matters as unfair labor practices.

Congress established a special labor law for railroad and airline workers for several reasons. Because of transportation’s critical importance to the economy, an essential goal of public policy has been to ensure that both passenger and freight transportation services continue without interruption. Production can cease—at least temporarily—in most other industries without causing significant harm to the economy. When transportation stops, however, production stops. Thus Congress saw fit to enact a statute that contained provisions to ensure that labor strife would not halt rail services. Primarily because of the importance of air mail transportation, the Railway Labor Act of 1926 was extended to the airline industry in 1936.

The first section of this book introduces labor policy and presents a history of the labor movement in the United States. Discussing early labor legislation, Kaps focuses on unfair labor practices and subsequent major labor statutes.

The second section provides readers with a comparison of labor provisions that apply to the railroad and airline industries as well as to the remainder of the economy.

The final section centers on the evolution of labor in the airline industry. The author pays particular attention to recent events affecting labor in commercial aviation, particularly the effect of airline deregulation on airline labor.

  
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American Hotel
The Waldorf-Astoria and the Making of a Century
David Freeland
Rutgers University Press, 2021
Completed in 1931, New York’s Waldorf-Astoria towers over Park Avenue as an international landmark and a masterpiece of Art Deco architecture. A symbol of elegance and luxury, the hotel has hosted countless movie stars, business tycoons, and world leaders over the past ninety years.
 
American Hotel takes us behind the glittering image to reveal the full extent of the Waldorf’s contribution toward shaping twentieth-century life and culture. Historian David Freeland examines the Waldorf from the opening of its first location in 1893 through its rise to a place of influence on the local, national, and international stage. Along the way, he explores how the hotel’s mission to provide hospitality to a diverse range of guests was put to the test by events such as Prohibition, the anticommunist Red Scare, and civil rights struggles. 
 
Alongside famous guests like Frank Sinatra, Martin Luther King, Richard Nixon, and Eleanor Roosevelt, readers will meet the lesser-known men and women who made the Waldorf a leader in the hotel industry and a key setting for international events. American Hotel chronicles how institutions such as the Waldorf-Astoria played an essential role in New York’s growth as a world capital.
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Creating Vibrant Public Spaces
Streetscape Design in Commercial and Historic Districts
By Ned Crankshaw
Island Press, 2008
Public space and street design in commercial districts can dictate the success or failure of walkable community centers. Instead of focusing our efforts on designing new “compact town centers,” many of which are located in the suburbs, we should instead be revitalizing existing authentic town centers. This informative, practical book describes methods for restoring the health and vibrancy of the streets and public spaces of our existing commercial districts in ways that will make them positive alternatives to suburban sprawl while respecting their historic character.
 
Clearly written and with numerous photos to enhance the text, Creating Vibrant Public Spaces uses examples from communities across the United States to illustrate the potential for restoring the balance provided by older urban centers between automobile access and “walkability.” In advice that can be applied to a variety of settings and scales, Crankshaw describes the tenets of contemporary design theory, how to understand the physical evolution of towns, how to analyze existing conditions, and how to evaluate the feasibility of design recommendations.
 
Good design in commercial centers, Crankshaw contends, facilitates movement and access, creates dynamic social spaces, and contributes to the sense of a “center”—a place where social, commercial, and institutional interaction is more vibrant than in surrounding districts. For all the talk of creating new “green” urban spaces, the ingredients of environmentally aware design, he points out, can often be found in the deteriorating cores and neighborhoods of towns and cities across the United States. With creativity, planning, and commitment, these centers can thrive again, adding to the quality of local life and contributing to the local economy, too.
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Fatal Words
Communication Clashes and Aircraft Crashes
Steven Cushing
University of Chicago Press, 1994
On March 27, 1977, 583 people died when KLM and Pan Am 747s collided on a crowded, foggy runway in Tenerife, the Canary Islands. The cause, a miscommunication between the pilot and the air traffic controller. The pilot radioed, "We are now at takeoff," meaning that the plane was lifting off, but the tower controller misunderstood and thought the plane was waiting on the runway.

In Fatal Words, Steven Cushing explains how miscommunication has led to dozens of aircraft disasters, and he proposes innovative solutions for preventing them. He examines ambiguities in language when aviation jargon and colloquial English are mixed, when a word is used that has different meanings, and when different words are used that sound alike. To remedy these problems, Cushing proposes a visual communication system and a computerized voice mechanism to help clear up confusing language.

Fatal Words is an accessible explanation of some of the most notorious aircraft tragedies of our time, and it will appeal to scholars in communications, linguistics, and cognitive science, to aviation experts, and to general readers.
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Fiscal Aspects of Aviation Management
Robert W. Kaps
Southern Illinois University Press, 2000

Although introductions to courses in finance exist for a variety of fields, Robert W. Kaps provides the first text to address the subject from an aviation viewpoint. Relying on his vast experience—twenty-plus years in the airline industry and more than thirty years in aviation—Kaps seeks not only to prepare students for careers in the aviation field but also to evoke in these students an excitement about the business. Specifically, he shows students how airlines, airports, and aviation are financed. Each chapter contains examples and illustrations and ends with suggested readings and references.

Following his discussion of financial management and accounting procedures, Kaps turns to financial management and sources of financial information. Here he discusses types of business organizations, corporate goals, business ethics, maximizing share price, and sources of financial information.

Kaps also covers debt markets, financial statements, air transport sector revenue generation, and air transport operating cost management, including cost administration and labor costs, fuel, and landing fees and rentals. He describes in depth air transport yield management systems and airport financing, including revenues, ownership, operations, revenue generation, funding, allocation of Air Improvement Program funds, bonds, and passenger facility charges.

Kaps concludes with a discussion of the preparation of a business plan, which includes advice about starting and running a business. He also provides two typical business plan outlines. While the elements of fiscal management in aviation follow generally accepted accounting principles, many nuances are germane only to the airline industry. Kaps provides a basic understanding of the principles that are applicable throughout the airline industry.

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From Boom to Bubble
How Finance Built the New Chicago
Rachel Weber
University of Chicago Press, 2015
An unprecedented historical, sociological, and geographic look at how property markets change and fail—and how that affects cities.

In From Boom to Bubble, Rachel Weber debunks the idea that booms occur only when cities are growing and innovating. Instead, she argues, even in cities experiencing employment and population decline, developers rush to erect new office towers and apartment buildings when they have financial incentives to do so. Focusing on the main causes of overbuilding during the early 2000s, Weber documents the case of Chicago’s “Millennial Boom,” showing that the Loop’s expansion was a response to global and local pressures to produce new assets. An influx of cheap cash, made available through the use of complex financial instruments, helped transform what started as a boom grounded in modest occupant demand into a speculative bubble, where pricing and supply had only tenuous connections to the market. From Boom to Bubble is an innovative look at how property markets change and fail—and how that affects cities.
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From Padi States to Commercial States
Reflections on Identity and the Social Construction Space in the Borderlands of Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar
Frédéric Bourdier, Maxime Boutry, Jacques Ivanoff, and Olivier Ferrari
Amsterdam University Press, 2015
"Zomia" is a term coined in 2002 to describe the broad swath of mountainous land in Southeast Asia that has always been beyond the reach of lowland governments despite their technical claims to control. This book expands the anthropological reach of that term, applying it to any deterritorialised people, from cast-out migrants to modern resisters-in the process finding new ways to understand the realities of peoples and ethnicities that refuse to become part of the modern state.
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Knowing Where It Comes From
Labeling Traditional Foods to Compete in a Global Market
Fabio Parasecoli
University of Iowa Press, 2017
Offering the first broadly comparative analysis of place-based labeling and marketing systems, Knowing Where It Comes From examines the way claims about the origins and meanings of traditional foods get made around the world, from Italy and France to Costa Rica and Thailand. It also highlights the implications of different systems for both producers and consumers.

Labeling regimes have moved beyond intellectual property to embrace community-based protections, intangible cultural heritage, cultural landscapes, and indigenous knowledge. Reflecting a rich array of juridical, regulatory, and activist perspectives, these approaches seek to level the playing field on which food producers and consumers interact. 
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Photography from the Turin Shroud to the Turing Machine
Yanai Toister
Intellect Books, 2020
This book introduces two conceptual models of photography: the Turin Shroud and the universal Turing machine. The Turin Shroud inspires a discussion on photography’s frequently acclaimed “ontological privilege,” which has conditioned an understanding of photography as a sui generis breed of images wherein pictorial representation is coextensive with human vision. This is then contrasted with a discussion on the universal Turing machine, which integrates photography into a framework of media philosophy and algorithmic art. Here, photography becomes more than just the present-day sum of its depiction traditions, devices, and dissemination networks. Rather, it is archetypical of multiple systems of abstraction and classification, and various other symbolic processes of transformation.
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Six Faces of Globalization
Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters
Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp
Harvard University Press, 2021

A Financial Times Best Book of the Year
A Fortune Best Book of the Year
A ProMarket Best Political Economy Book of the Year


An essential guide to the intractable public debates about the virtues and vices of economic globalization, cutting through the complexity to reveal the fault lines that divide us and the points of agreement that might bring us together.

Globalization has lifted millions out of poverty. Globalization is a weapon the rich use to exploit the poor. Globalization builds bridges across national boundaries. Globalization fuels the populism and great-power competition that is tearing the world apart.

When it comes to the politics of free trade and open borders, the camps are dug in, producing a kaleidoscope of claims and counterclaims, unlikely alliances, and unexpected foes. But what exactly are we fighting about? And how might we approach these issues more productively? Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp cut through the confusion with an indispensable survey of the interests, logics, and ideologies driving these intractable debates, which lie at the heart of so much political dispute and decision making. The authors expertly guide us through six competing narratives about the virtues and vices of globalization: the old establishment view that globalization benefits everyone (win-win), the pessimistic belief that it threatens us all with pandemics and climate change (lose-lose), along with various rival accounts that focus on specific winners and losers, from China to America’s Rust Belt.

Instead of picking sides, Six Faces of Globalization gives all these positions their due, showing how each deploys sophisticated arguments and compelling evidence. Both globalization’s boosters and detractors will come away with their eyes opened. By isolating the fundamental value conflicts—growth versus sustainability, efficiency versus social stability—driving disagreement and showing where rival narratives converge, Roberts and Lamp provide a holistic framework for understanding current debates. In doing so, they showcase a more integrative way of thinking about complex problems.

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front cover of Six Faces of Globalization
Six Faces of Globalization
Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters
Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp
Harvard University Press

A Financial Times Book of the Year
A Fortune Book of the Year


“This book compels us to change our position, move out of our comfort zone, and see the world differently.”—Branko Milanovic, author of Capitalism, Alone

“A very smart book…not just about globalization, but also about the power and importance of narrative…Highly recommended.”—Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America

“An indispensable guide to how and why many people have abandoned the old, time-tested ways of thinking about politics and the economy. This is the book the world needs to read now.”—Richard Baldwin, author of The Great Convergence

When it comes to the politics of free trade and open borders, the camps are clear, producing a kaleidoscope of claims and counterclaims. But what exactly are we fighting about? Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp cut through the confusion and mudslinging with an indispensable survey of the interests, logics, and ideologies driving these seemingly intractable arguments.

Instead of picking sides, Six Faces of Globalization guides us through six competing narratives about the virtues and vices of globalization, giving each position its due and showing how each deploys sophisticated arguments and compelling evidence. Both globalization’s boosters and detractors will come away with their eyes opened. By isolating the fundamental value conflicts driving disagreement—growth versus sustainability, efficiency versus social stability—and showing where rival narratives converge, this book provides an invaluable framework for understanding ongoing debates and finding a way forward.

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The Sugar Act and the American Revolution
Ken Shumate
Westholme Publishing, 2022
The first act of Parliament to levy direct taxation on the colonies, the Sugar Act of 1764 defined a new colonial policy and prompted a decade of protests that ended in open rebellion against Great Britain. The initial Sugar Act of 1733—also known as the Molasses Act—was designed to secure and encourage the trade of British colonies in the West Indies by placing prohibitive duties on the products of competing foreign colonies. The dramatic revision to that act in 1764 imposed duties for both revenue and trade regulation, in addition strengthening the laws of trade so as to tighten the connection between Great Britain and the colonies. In 1766, a revision to the act of 1764 responded to American grievances, but also transformed the Sugar Act into an explicit law for taxation. Americans, having long seen the act as within Parliament’s authority to regulate their trade, did not at first see the duties as taxes—and paid them without complaint. The resulting revenue was greater than that exacted by any other parliamentary tax on America. 
The Sugar Act and the American Revolution by Ken Shumate is the only book-length treatment of this first great challenge of the revolutionary era. For each of the three incarnations of the act, the author provides a clause-by-clause description, including the British reasoning behind the duties and trade restrictions, and a summary of the resulting American grievance. Following the explanation of each act are chapters describing the protests of American merchants and popular leaders, and the British response to those protests. As a consequence of further parliamentary acts of taxation, the story ends with the demand in 1774 by the First Continental Congress for Parliament to repeal the Sugar Act as being “essentially necessary in order to restore harmony between Great Britain and the American colonies.”
 
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Transformations in American Legal History
Daniel W. Hamilton
Harvard University Press

Over the course of his career at Harvard, Morton Horwitz changed the questions legal historians ask. The Transformation of American Law, 1780–1860 (1977) disclosed the many ways that judge-made law favored commercial and property interests and remade law to promote economic growth. The Transformation of American Law, 1870–1960 (1992) continued that project, with a focus on ideas that reshaped law as we struggled for objective and neutral legal responses to our country’s crises. In more recent years he has written extensively on the legal realists and the Warren Court.

Following an earlier festschrift volume by his former students, this volume includes essays by Horwitz’s colleagues at Harvard and those from across the academy, as well as his students. These essays assess specific themes in Horwitz’s work, from the antebellum era to the Warren Court, from jurisprudence to the influence of economics on judicial doctrine. The essays are, like Horwitz, provocative and original as they continue his transformation of American legal history.

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U.S. International Economic Strategy in a Turbulent World
Strategic Rethink
Howard J. Shatz
RAND Corporation, 2016
This report presents strategic choices America faces regarding the international economy over the term of the next U.S. administration, focusing on policy choices in the areas of maintaining and improving the rules-based international economic system; working with China and better integrating it into the existing system; supporting economic growth of allies and partners; and using sanctions to change unwanted behavior and counter adversaries.
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